[Cerek]

<font color=plum><font color=yellow>Daniel_M</font> - Your opening post is the most eloquent, yet thorough, review of the film I have seen so far...and I read many of the reviews and comments about it.

I especially appreciate your perceptiveness in explaining how mere gestures and facial expressions literally impart volumes of information to the viewer.

I also agree that you "experience" this film instead of watching it.

I saw it in the theater twice. During my first trip, I sat in the very back row of the theater (because I got there a few minutes late and the previews were already playing). During the Scourging scene, a lady got up and left the theater, but returned a little later and sat down two seats from me. When the scene of Jesus carrying His Cross out of the city began, she turned to me and asked "WHY do they keep beating Him? WHY don't they stop?" I was crying too much to answer her. Then she turned to the screen and kept saying "STOP IT! STOP IT!!"

I wanted to remind her that it WAS "just" a movie...but it so vividly captures the torment that Jesus willingly endured, it is very easy to forget that it is just a depiction instead of the real thing.

A friend of mine once asked me which historical figure I would want to go visit if I had a time machine. He said he would like to visit General Robert E. Lee or Ulysses S. Grant from the Civil War. I thought long and hard, but couldn't think of ANY historical figure that compared in significance to Jesus Christ.

I told him that - if I had a Time Machine - the ONE event I would want to visit would be the Crucifixion...so that I could see first-hand the suffering Jesus endured to provide absolution of my sins.

After seeing The Passion of the Christ, I doubt I would be able to endure watching that spectacle in real life. I wept openly in the theater both times I watched the movie and I bought the DVD the first day it was released.

To me, it is easily the greatest film ever made.</font>